A lot of college teams simply don't have the resources to pay for regular, professional coaching. As a result,many teams use more experienced team members as peer teachers/coaches of beginner team members, thereby saving lots of cash while providing instruction for newer members of the teams.

Have you experienced this? Or, even if not, what do you think are possible pros ad cons of such a set-up? Ar there other alternatives for getting effective instruction for college teams?

One of the main benefits is of course the money. Student instructors are far cheaper. Also, the student instructor could teach some "mundane work" (such as routines/steps, basic techniques) so that when the pro comes, s/he could work on the more important issues instead of using the precious time to teach steps. Ideally, we would like to have pros at our side for all lessons, and practices. But seriously, it is really quite a waste of pros' time.

And if you are fortunate enough to have a high level student instructor (let's say prechamp, champ level), then one could learn a lot of things. I was fortunate to experience such group lessons. The instructor was a prechamp latin dancer. While she is an Asian (American), she taught the class in the "Russian style": which involves lots of yelling, shouting, pushing, drills, and sweat . I improved so much during that semester/year and I am very grateful for those "boot camps". I think some pushing really helps us to get better faster.

Of course, there is always the fear that the instructor could teach something wrong. But since they basically only teach simple things, they can't get all too wrong. I mean, a heel lead is a heel lead. You can't go way too wrong on that.

well I believe that Arthur Murray principle was that the teacher was not that far ahead of the student. I believe the best thing you can do for a beginner is give them the road map, which is what often the associate coach does. When they student has progressed then move them on to someone more advanced. It can save people a lot of money and the more experienced coach can spend their time better is finessing/grooming the next level dancer.

Logged

Dance is a delicate balance between perfection and beauty. ~Author UnknownDance Forum

I think that usually its near disasterous. Lessons from someone that can not really dance can set you back rather than put you forward - and may well be harmful to your body. The whole point of dancesport is that it mazimizes what two people can do together dancing while minimizing risk.

If I were starting again and knew what I do now I would not go ANYWHERE NEAR such incompetent coaches. Why do that when for a few dollars more you can get real training from real pros.

I dont necessary support the Arthur Murray philosophy but in Dance-sport we have an Associate Coach who works under the guidance of a professional. To be an associate coach you have to do tests in the three styles on offer in Australia. I would not support someone who has no dance training at all . But to be taught by the associate teacher will give a lower cost for someone coming into dancing. Bad habits should not take a lifetime to leave the brain with clear instructions.

Logged

Dance is a delicate balance between perfection and beauty. ~Author UnknownDance Forum

If I was starting now I'd pay premium for the best teacher I could afford. The biggest mistake in ANY activity is to think that the basic elements are the most easily taught - in fact it is always the opposite.

If I was starting now I'd pay premium for the best teacher I could afford. The biggest mistake in ANY activity is to think that the basic elements are the most easily taught - in fact it is always the opposite.

yes but that thinking is with hindsight.....which always helps. but research is good and ask questions from others.

Logged

Dance is a delicate balance between perfection and beauty. ~Author UnknownDance Forum

If I was starting now I'd pay premium for the best teacher I could afford. The biggest mistake in ANY activity is to think that the basic elements are the most easily taught - in fact it is always the opposite.

yes but that thinking is with hindsight.....which always helps. but research is good and ask questions from others.

Perhaps one person will read this and save themselves a LOT of wasted time and money

I think education is education, and what you want versus what you get depends on the quality of educator you use. College ballroom is an interesting example. Everyone is spending money to go to college ("uni" for the Aussies) because of the college's reputation and quality of professors. Otherwise they'd pay other students to learn, buy books written by other students (much cheaper, I would presume, if there was a market for it), and wish and hope that they got lucky with the students they chose as educators. Quite the gamble.

I know some of the best coaches in the world with the actual results to back it up that cost one third the price of the so called, "top coaches". So cost is not necessarily dependent on quality. Even if the per lesson cost is high, cost-benefit analyses need to be done. You can pay $50 an hour to learn something in 10 lessons, or pay $100 an hour to a good pro and learn it in half a lesson. In my case, the coach I found could teach in one day what nearly all other coaches I went to tried to teach me for years. Sure, I went through a bazillion before I found her, but the reason is because I asked all the wrong questions when choosing a coach. I should've treated ballroom dancing as, "education": my problems would've been significantly less. When I'm choosing a college, if I use cost as the primary factor, chances are that I would be taking a massive gamble on the quality of education I will be getting. Of course, if the university has an insanely high reputation with a super low cost (there are ballroom coaches like that out there) then you hit the education jackpot.

True: depends on your goal. Unfortuantely, you can get a worse education and yet do better because you paid to get into the 'elite'. The English school system was like that - a poor student at a 'public school '(that's private here) would often get the nod over a much stronger one from a state school. Of course that happens everywhere but there it was built into the system and wasn't even thought of as wrong.

Dance is at least to a large extent its own filter - you have to be able to dance well to succeed. Yet, there are mentor lines and school systems here too where a follower of a particular style of dance will do well within one community even if they were really not as good as a competitor from a different lineage.

But all that is really beyond the topic here which is really about the other end, getting started as apart from competing in Blackpool. With education there are lots of resources to help you spend wisely but with dance its the opposite, there are a lot of charlatans trying to help you spend stupidly and without 20:20 hind vision its very hard to spot them.